Your site stays up and current, without you thinking about it
Websites do not fail loudly. A certificate expires, a form stops sending, prices go stale, and you find out weeks later from a customer. A retainer is the arrangement where that stops being your problem.
What's included
Everything below is part of the work, not an upsell once you have started.
Hosting included
No separate hosting bill, no control panel to log into, no renewal you forget until the site is offline.
Weekly backups
A full copy taken every week and kept off the server, so a bad change or a bad day is a restore rather than a rebuild.
Security & SSL monitoring
The padlock stays valid and dependencies stay patched. An expired certificate makes browsers warn people away from you.
Content updates
New prices, new photos, changed hours, a new service. You send it, I change it, within your monthly hours.
Uptime monitoring
The site is checked automatically. If it goes down, I find out from the monitor rather than from you.
Monthly report
What changed, what was updated and, on the higher plans, where you rank. One page, plain language.
Who it's for
- Your site is live and nobody is looking after it which is the normal state of most small business websites.
- It broke once already and you would rather not repeat the week that followed.
- You do not want to touch it and would rather send a WhatsApp than log into anything.
- Your prices or team change often and the site is always three months behind.
Pricing
Monthly, in ZAR. Each plan pairs with a website package, but you do not have to have bought the site from me. Cancel any time with 30 days' notice. Prices exclude VAT.
Keeps the site you paid for from quietly breaking.
- Hosting included
- Weekly backups
- Security & SSL monitoring
- Content updates (1hr/mo)
For a site that has to bring in work, not just sit there.
- Everything in Starter Care
- Content updates (2hr/mo)
- Monthly SEO report
- Same-day reply on weekdays
For sites with a shop or a booking system.
- Everything in Business Care
- Store / booking support
- SEO monitoring & reporting
- Content updates (4hr/mo)
For businesses where the website is the front door.
- Everything in Pro Care
- Fully managed service
- Agreed response times in writing
- Direct technical contact
- Strategy & review calls
Premium Care is settled in consultation rather than billed automatically, because "from R3,500" depends on what managing it actually involves.
See your homepage design before you pay anything. After a quick call, I'll build your homepage concept free. If you don't want to go ahead after seeing it, you owe nothing.
Questions about monthly maintenance
What counts as a content update?
Text, images, prices, opening hours, staff, adding or removing a service, swapping a PDF. The monthly hours are for changes to what is already there. A new page layout, a new feature or a redesign is project work and gets quoted separately, and I tell you which one it is before doing it, not after.
What are your support hours?
Mon–Fri 7am–7pm · Sat 12pm–5pm SAST. On Business Care and above you get a same-day reply on weekdays. We do not offer 24/7 or overnight cover. The hours above are the hours we actually work, and I would rather set a promise we can keep than one that sounds better in a brochure. Uptime monitoring runs continuously regardless, so an outage is caught even outside those hours.
Do I have to take a retainer?
No. It is optional on every package. Without one you arrange your own hosting, which typically runs R50–R150 a month plus a domain renewal of R100–R200 a year, and you handle updates yourself or pay hourly when something needs doing. Plenty of clients do exactly that.
Can I cancel?
Any time, with 30 days' notice. You own the site, so cancelling means you take your files and your domain and either self-host or move to someone else. There is no lock-in and nothing is built in a proprietary system designed to make leaving hard.
Do you maintain sites you did not build?
Often, yes, but not always. It depends on how it was built and what it was built with. Send me the address and I will tell you honestly whether I can look after it properly. If I cannot, I will say so rather than take the money and hope.
Other things I do
Tell me what you need
Send a message with what your business does and what you are trying to fix. I'll come back with a straight answer on whether I can help and what it would cost.
Mon–Fri 7am–7pm · Sat 12pm–5pm SAST